IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ KNOWLEDGE OF OPEN CLASSES THROUGH GROUP INVESTIGATION

Abstract

This research aimed to find out the improvement of the students’ knowledge in open classes which focused only on noun and adjective through group investigation. The research method used was a pre-experimental design with one group pretest and posttest design. The population was the eighth-year students of SMP Muhammadiyah 1 Makassar, the academic year 2009/2010 which consisted of 140 students and separated into four classes. The sample was taken by purposive sampling technique and the total number of samples was 30 students. The instrument used for measuring the students’ improvement scores in the form of percentages was a written test. The data were gathered after scoring the students’ ability in open word class, especially for nouns and adjectives, tabulated in percentage, and analyzed using a t-test to prove the significance of the hypothesis (p=0,05, df=29). The findings of the research were (1) the students’ improvement in noun test was 41 % with t-test 13.43 and t-table 2.045  ( 13.43 > 2.045), it was significant because the t-test was higher than the t-table; (2) the students’ improvement in the adjective test was 80 % with t-test 11.4 and t-table 2.045 (11.4>2.045), it was significant because t-test was higher than t-table, and the improvement on both noun and adjective altogether was 50 % with t-test 16.43 and t-table 2.045 (16.43 > 2.045).